


The United Empire of America

by putconspiraciesinit



Series: Emperor Burr AU [1]
Category: 19th Century CE RPF, Historical RPF, Political RPF - US 19th c.
Genre: Alternate History, Alternate Universe, Burr Conspiracy, Character Death, Coronations, Coup d'Etats, Execution, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-26
Updated: 2019-04-26
Packaged: 2020-02-04 12:49:16
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 745
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18604849
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/putconspiraciesinit/pseuds/putconspiraciesinit
Summary: In which the Burr Conspiracy actually happened...and succeeded.(or, in which I try to write villain!Burr)





	The United Empire of America

America was a young country, and the White House even younger, having been built less than a decade ago; the phrase ‘never before had there been such a massive crowd gathered outside the White House’ was not a particularly impressive one. Nevertheless, it was a _true_ one. To anyone not at the front of the crowd, trying to _see_ what was going on instead of just knowing it, it almost felt as though everyone in America had showed up to watch the new emperor’s coronation. To watch their (now former) president be executed.

There were a lot of military men there wearing very nice white and red uniforms, there were a lot of cannons and fanfare and _spectacle_. The emperor loved a good spectacle. He always had. It was perhaps the one thing everybody knew about him that was never debated or contested--besides his apparent physical attractiveness.

A nice and showy-looking gallows had been constructed, one that could only appropriately be used for the execution of a former head of state during a coup d’état. A man was standing there, arms and legs bound with rope. An older man, very tall, lanky, rectangular. Ginger. Dressed rather plainly. The noose was around his neck, but he wasn’t to be hanged until after the coronation; the emperor wanted him to watch. Said everything that had transpired in the past three years was the fault of that tall man, ex-president Thomas Jefferson. Conspiracies, he said. As many as could be crammed into one presidential election. But after the takeover, 1800 felt less like seven years and more like seven centuries ago.

All at once, the crowd, all however many people there were--thousands? Hundreds of thousands?--went completely silent. Starting with the people at the front, then spreading, because nobody wanted to be that one person who kept making noise when everyone else around them had stopped talking.

A man had surfaced from inside the white house. A tiny little man with very elegant and regal-looking clothes and long black hair and intense bags under his eyes as though he’d never slept a night in his life. Legends said he hadn’t. Legends said a lot of things about him, but the most consistent one was that he wasn’t like a normal human being in that he simply didn’t need sleep. They’d been saying that about him since he was a child, staying up all night to study, then when he’d fought in the revolution, always on lookout at night, then again when he’d campaigned for the man he was about to have hanged, when he’d be awake for God only knows how long. Some said he’d sold his soul to the Devil to rid him of the need to sleep completely; others argued that he did need to sleep, but simply forced himself not to through sheer power of will. (Others claimed to have seen him drink as many as twenty cups of coffee in a single day.)

The smile on his face was as wide as ever. Legends said he never went out in public without it. He never stopped smiling, he never dropped his cheerful demeanor. It was a genuine, happy sort of smile; not at all a smug, cruel smirk. Whether this made him less terrifying or more so was a topic of some debate. After all, this was the man who had brought America to its knees. It was unsettling to imagine that he’d done that with the demeanor of a giddy child instead of a ruthless conqueror.

The choir song chosen for the occasion didn’t sound like any Christian hymn, and was almost as upbeat as the emperor himself. The man administering the oath was not a clergyman, but a former senator. He said a great deal of dramatic things about governing the empire well and doing good by the people as their sovereign, which the emperor affirmed equally ceremoniously. Finally, the crown--a very beautiful one, supposedly designed by the emperor personally--was placed on the emperor’s head, and the man rose to his feet and cried out, in the most jovial of voices,

“ _Hang him_.”

 

Thomas Jefferson was silent as ever when the platform dropped and during the second or so before his neck snapped and he died. The crowd, in a mixture of glee, shock, defeat, and other strong emotions, remained utterly silent, until former senator Dayton called out, and they repeated:

“Long live Aaron I, Emperor of America!”


End file.
